I cleared my throat and composed my words while the engine roared to life and he lit up again, leaning out the window. “Angkor, I was going to... well, I wanted to ask...” I tripped on the words a little, despite taking the time to think them over. “Would you like to go to dinner with me sometime? To discuss things beyond death and mayhem, I mean?”
Angkor looked back over at me in surprise, eyebrows arched.
“I know we got off to an awkward start, but you saved my life last month.” My heart was hammering now, voice uncontrollably terse. “I’ve… enjoyed your company these last few weeks, and I’ve sensed we probably have a lot to talk about, but Strange Kitty isn’t very, well…”
“Private,” he finished.
I could feel myself flushing. “Precisely.”
His smile spread into a grin as he glanced down again, then back up to my face. “You saved my life first. And you know… I’d love to.”
Yes. He’d said yes? My palms were sweating. Asking that one question had given me a kick of adrenaline almost equal to what I’d gotten from taking out Yegor. “Well, great. Alright. What do you like to eat?”
Angkor playfully pinched his tongue between his teeth. “Gift Horse. But I’ll settle for good French food if you know where to find it.”
I scoffed, forcing myself to keep my eyes on the road. “Of course I do. I'm blatnoi.[1] I'd be ashamed of myself if I didn't know every ostentatious restaurant in the city. But not tonight: I’m going to pick up Binah and go on a short road trip to cool my heels. Even with the blood rain taking up the headlines, Yegor’s death will make the news. What do you say to seven p.m. tomorrow night?”
“Sounds wonderful,” he replied. “I’ll be working on my memory all night tonight, so the timing should be perfect. Do you know where we’re going?”
“I’ll call the restaurant at home and write the address down for you. Or I can just pick you up.” That was what you did for dates, wasn’t it? Pick them up?
“I’d rather meet you there.” Angkor smiled, as mysteriously remote as the Mona Lisa. “No telling what we’ll be up to tomorrow.”
Chapter 4
The Twin Tigers M.C. compound was the closest thing I now had to a home. It was comprised of two large buildings on a big dirt lot in Williamsburg. Their business, Strange Kitty, was a two-story red brick butcher’s slab, a dive bar and lounge fronting Marcy Avenue that hosted a loud crowd of punks and down-and-out spooks. A sea of gravel, cigarette butts, and motorcycles divided the club from the derelict clapboard house behind it. The front was boarded up and heavily graffitied, shielded from the road by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire.
The yard was currently bustling, despite the rain. People chattered and smoked under faded blue umbrellas, where Jenner was holding court. We parked and got out, collecting coats and slamming doors. I almost didn’t see Zane until he peeled off from the wall. He was the kind of man that usually only existed in Calvin Klein ads and women’s wet dreams: dark, quiet, handsome, hard-cut, with startling pale green eyes. He also turned into a cougar the size of a small pony, and was as gay as a Boy Scout jamboree – not that I was in any position to judge, given that I’d just asked another man on a date.
“Hey, Rex.” Like the other bikers, he still used the nickname I’d given to the shapeshifters the first time I’d met them. “How’s tricks?”
“Tricks?” I was still a little slow from the sensory shit-fit from earlier in the day. “Oh… nothing much. What’s happening?”
“Jenner wants to raid this depot of yours,” he replied. On his feet, Zane was close to seven feet tall. His voice was a deep rumble, a few shades deeper than Binah’s purr. “She’s worried after what happened on Wall Street. Think you’re up to it today?”
“I need to change clothes and get ready for tonight, and then we can be on our way.” In truth, I wasn’t really up to a – but it was better to get it done now, while the Organizatsiya was off-balance. “You heard about the storm, I assume?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what it means, but it doesn’t mean anything good.” He jerked his head toward the car in the middle of the yard. “Tally and me are going to be working on that all week.”
Jenner’s beautiful white 1969 Impala, formerly pristine, was trashed. It was smeared with rusty dried blood. The roof and hood were dented, the fender scraped, and the windshield bowed in by a concentric web of cracks where the frozen head had struck it.
Angkor winced. “Jeez… I hadn’t even really looked at it. What a mess.”
Zane grunted his assent. “Well, go tell Jenner what you’re planning. I think we all just want to get it over with.”
Jenner was once more dressed the part of a rivethead biker queen: a spiked leather jacket plated over the shoulders and down the arms, black jeans, and boots that looked too heavy for her petite frame. She was an anomaly in the male-dominated world of America’s biker gangs, but her men listened to her and respected her—and no wonder. Jenner was a shapeshifter tigress and the Malek-Kab, the Elder shapeshifter of New York. She had something to the tune of five hundred years of collected memory as her Ka-Bah, her animal self, reincarnated over and over through the centuries. In this lifetime, she had found her niche in the motorcycle world, and at the age where most Asian women were perming their hair and breeding canaries, Jennifer Tran ran guns and drugs from Mexico to the Canadian border through a diverse network of truckers, bikers, and Vietnamese Triads. She was kind but tough, ruthless, and refreshingly straightforward. I held her in high regard, and for whatever reason, she seemed to like me in return.
Her eyes lit up as we pushed our way into the ring of people that encircled her. “Hoi, Rex. Angbutt. How are we doing?”
“I have to get ready, then we can go,” I said. “Better to raid before Nicolai knows what hit him.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jenner took a swig off her beer, and leaned against the little patio table that held the umbrella. “What can we expect to find?”
“The depot is at K&S, a scrapyard out in Babylon. They own four yards. The main one is where all the activity is: the crusher, metal sorting, baling, that sort of thing. The other three store intact vehicles. We’re headed for one of those yards. Tall fences, not too much protection, probably dogs and a couple of contractors. We usually hired Chechens for jobs like these. Most of them are veterans who’ve seen front line action, but there won’t be many of them.”
“Right. Let’s plan for six, which means we need to take around fifteen people. Overwhelm them with numbers, get them to back down, and loot the place bare.” Jenner crossed her arms, sucking on a tooth. “Six of us in the back of the truck, a couple of cars, five bikes for escort. Think you’re good enough to ride your bike out that far, Rex?”
I nodded. I’d inherited a handsome red and black Softail custom from the former Road Captain of the gang, Duke. Zane had been teaching me to ride. With the exception of one unfortunate incident involving the throttle and the chain link fence surrounding the compound, I’d taken to it readily.
“Good. Go get your pants on, and then we’ll be off on our treasure hunt, gentlemen.” Jenner flashed a wolfish, sharp-toothed grin to my left. “And hey, Angkor: if you’re gonna go suck Alexi’s dick before we troop off, you better get to work.”
I flushed. “Jenner-”
Angkor’s eyes widened, and he lay a hand over his chest. “Me? How dare you. Jenner, come on. You know I’m saving myself until marriage.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Angkor, you are literally the biggest whore who ever whored in Whoretown, okay?”
“Your mom is a bigger whore than me,” Angkor said.
“My mom paid your mom to-”
“Okay. That’s enough of that. I have reached my limit of terrible mom jokes for today.” I said.
Jenner wrinkled her nose. “Your mom’s a... mom... joke?”
Exasperated, I turned and stalked off. The pack of men – mixed Blanks[2] and Weeders, shapeshifters – broke into chuckle
s and snorts behind me. God, what if Angkor told them I’d asked him out? I’d never hear the end of it. I hadn’t even considered that.
The only way into the clubhouse was through the garage out back, which had been converted into a biker's paradise: a private bar garnished with war memorabilia, flags and banners, medals donated by the veterans in the club. There was a pool table, a jukebox dedicated to rock music, and approximately two ashtrays for every one person. Binah was pacing on the pool table, yowling as only a Siamese could. “Miiiau! Miiiau!”
“I know. I abandoned you. I was gone forever.” I went to her and let her jump up onto my shoulder, giving her a couple of seconds of chin-scratch time before heading into the house. While Binah continued to kvetch beside my ear, I made a beeline for the barracks-style dorm Angkor and I had been sharing for the better part of a month. It was blessedly quiet for now, the air still, the light muted. My magical tools were laid out on the dresser beside my bed, a makeshift altar that was a miniature replica of the one I used to have in my apartment. A tarot card took center place beside a small obsidian knife and the space where the Wardbreaker typically sat. This week’s card was The Chariot, the only card I hadn’t colored during my stint on the streets. Of all the Major Arcana, this card was best left in black and white.
I showered, shaved, and called Club 21, a French-American bistro downtown. When I put the phone down, heart hammering, I paused for a moment to make sure I wasn’t having a stroke and let out a terse, tense breath. Christ. What the hell was I doing? I’d asked a man on a date, an attractive man who had once offered to… do things. Yes, things. Things he probably still wanted to do, assuming he hadn’t just said yes out of pity or… or something.
Shaking my head, I wrote down the address and left it on a card beside Angkor’s neatly made bed, then packed my motorcycle panniers for an overnight stay out of town. I zipped Binah into the front of my riding jacket and headed back out with the panniers slung over the other shoulder.
Jenner was giving a pep talk to the men she’d picked for the job. They had formed a ragged rank beside a large panel van now parked beside my car. Jenner’s Road Captain, Big Ron, lounged on the driver’s side with the door open and a cigar in his fingers, gut hanging over his jeans. The youngest member of the Big Cat Crew was in the cab beside him, watching everything with the eagerness of a Spaniel puppy. When I’d first met her, Talya Karzan had looked like a Native Siberian Girl Friday: prim, pretty in an insecure, girlish way, just this side of chubby. She was now slightly less plush, and she’d swapped the brown tweed and Oxfords for jeans, halter tops, and piercings. Now that she didn’t have to worry so much about White sensibilities in the office, she’d gotten tattoos in the Aleutian tradition: parallel lines that ran from her bottom lip to the edge of her chin. She’d become more confident and less nervous since leaving the Four Fires and joining the Twin Tigers, but she was still green enough that you could have poured dressing on her and called her a salad.
I sidled into the raid group just as Jenner pointed at Zane. “You. Go get your gear on and grab a couple of AR-15s. You’ll ride in the back with Johnny, Cliff, me, and Band-Aid. Rex, Angkor, you two join the escort.”
“Aye aye, chief.” Angkor flashed her a flippant salute.
The whole operation—and the Tigers’ enthusiasm—set me on edge. I had no idea if we’d even find anything at the depot, and even if we did, there was no way to know the value of the goods. “Sure thing.”
The ride out to K&S gave me time to think, to get back into my own head. Assuming the Meat Storm didn’t herald the imminent demise of our world, I knew Yegor’s death would destabilize the Organizatsiya in ways both profound and unforeseen. Yegor hadn’t been the most visible member of the Bratva, but he was the lynchpin between the intake of money and the outflow of payments to grease palms at the Port Authority Customs. Now that he was out of the picture, they would be scrambling to manage AEROMOR, the shipping business that handled the majority of our imports and exports.
My prediction was that Nicolai would make a bid to manage AEROMOR himself, leaving the security side of things to his second in command, Petro. In the process, he would rapidly overextend himself and—central to my plans—would become suddenly and dramatically wealthy. Nicolai’s weakness was his greed, and there was nothing in this world that killed off gangsters faster than a sudden windfall. I could name dozens of my contemporaries in the Mafia, the Organizatsiya and the Triads who’d had successful careers up until the moment they struck it rich. Money would spin Nicolai’s head, make him overconfident and sloppy, and when he screwed up, I would be there. Waiting.
It was drizzling by the time we reached Kozlowski and Sons. K&S was the largest scrapyard in the state, a field of lots surrounded by poorly maintained roads, a skeletal railway, and old, moth-eaten factories. I gestured to Ron, and rode ahead of the pack to lead them to the correct yard: the one used to store decommissioned heavy vehicles, some of which I knew hadn’t been moved in nearly fifteen years. When we cruised by on the first pass, it looked like the yard full of hulks was abandoned—but on the return, I saw movement. Two men dressed in generic blue security uniforms, but with the hard, nut-brown leather look of old soldiers. They watched us with slow eyes on our way back up the road.
I pulled up around the corner and parked the bike by the side of the road where the convoy had stopped. While Angkor got his helmet off and his rifle ready, I went over to the truck. Ron called back to Jenner, then rolled the window down. “How’zit lookin’ down there?”
“Two sentries,” I said, watching behind Ron as Jenner stuck her head through the curtain dividing the cabin from the cargo hold. “I think we should go with shock and awe. Let me go ahead, then follow up. I can hold their fire.”
“Suits me. Saddle up!” Jenner disappeared back into the hold.
While they assembled, I withdrew and centered, breathing deeply.
All acts of magic begin with a spark of Phi, the energy exchanged between a magician and their Neshamah, energy that was condensed with a Breath, capital B. It was pneuma in Greek or ruach in Hebrew, and it meant something deeper than drawing air into your lungs. It was the act of chambering Phi with the intent to fire.
Witnesses weren’t a concern in this part of Babylon, and the spectacle of fifteen heavily armed people and a truck heading for one of the rotting scrap yards went unobserved by everyone except the two guards, who had come to the fence line. Now that I had a decent view, I recognized one of them.
“Constantin Dadayev!” I called out to them in Russian, opening my arms as I walked toward the gate. “What a surprise to see you here! You’re looking very alive, for now.”
Dadayev’s eyes narrowed, first in confusion, then recognition. He was holding an AK-47 in his hands, but not aiming. “Alexi? What are you…?”
His friend tugged on his sleeve, pointing past my head, and the words froze on his chapped lips.
“I’m here to collect on damages,” I said. “So, if you’d like to leave here on two legs instead of being carried out under a sheet, I suggest you throw those guns down and lace your hands behind your head.”
“You traitorous bitch!” Dadayev snarled, aiming and firing in one smooth motion. The hail of bullets drowned out my voice as I barked a word of power and threw up a hand. Magic surged, and the spray hit a thin kinetic shield spun from Phi and the dust in the air. The first bullets zinged off it, deflecting, but then it began to absorb the energy... and when the smoke cleared, I stood with fingers outstretched, the rounds smashed into and trapped in a field of charged Phitonic energy. I twisted it a little, and the lead liquified and spread out like a curtain.
The pair of men blanched. Dadayev dropped his gun and put his hands up, his skin the color of milk. His companion shortly followed. Breathing hard, I held the field until the Tigers advanced past me, then dropped it. The sheet of molten metal hit the ground in a line, sending up a wall of steam and smoke that swirled and parted as the bikers charged in past me, shouti
ng, yelling at the men to get on the ground. That was when the rush hit me. GOD, it felt good to have my magic back.
There were ten or so buses like the ones Yegor had described. When we pried up the floors, we found a dragon’s hoard: Uzis and AK-47s, the workhorses of every armed non-military organization in the world. They were neatly cased in hardened plastic and foam crates, eight to a box, and they radiated hot magic.
“Wait,” I said, motioning them back. “Can you feel that?”
“I feel a tingle in my lady bits,” Jenner replied. “What is it, Lassie? Is there wizardry afoot?”
“Hilarious.” I passed a hand over them, feeling for wards or other protections. The energy was diffuse, though, not the orderly cycle of Phi I’d expect from a security measure. “Well, they should be safe to handle. We’ll see.”
“If I explode, tell Ron I always loved him.” Jenner passed her pry bar to Zane and pulled one of the rifles out with eager hands. It came out glowing. The barrels were engraved with lines of sigils that burned with blood-red light, just like the Wardbreaker. My eyes widened. If Dadayev had been using one of these instead of his Plain-Jane AK-47, I and several bikers would be dead.
Jenner whistled. “Well, hellooo baby.”
“What do these do, Rex?” Zane had to crouch to avoid hitting his head on the sagging ceiling. “Do you know?”
“If they’re anything like my own weapon, they’re made to pierce magical defenses,” I replied. “Shields, wards, and the like. They’re made to hurt things like us.”
“They must be planning a witch hunt then, huh? This is a really nice haul.” Jenner held the rifle up, appraising it with an expert eye. “And look: no serial numbers. These are ghost guns. We can raffle these off for five thousand a pop, easy. If the other cases’ve got the same amount of kit, we could be looking at a hell of a lot of money.”
Zero Sum: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 3) Page 4
